ASUS STRIX R9 380X DirectCU II OC 1080p Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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ASUS STRIX R9 380X DirectCU II OC 1080p Review - We take the new ASUS STRIX R9 380X DirectCU II OC based on AMD's new Radeon R9 380X GPU and fully test it at 1080p in today's most demanding games. We will also compare it with an AMD Radeon R9 280X and GeForce GTX 960 to see if it is worthy as an upgrade for 1080p gaming.
 
Great review, I was surprised how well the 380X did against the 1100 Mhz 280X in some of those games.

It is actually creepy how much you guys listen to your readers :p
 
this line kinda erks me.

The original 280X has 288GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The new 380X has a lot less, 182GB/sec of memory bandwidth. That's more than half the bandwidth lost

it mgiht be me but i cant get this to mean anything else that the new card has lost more than half of its bandwidth. but that its no thorugh
Going form 288 to 182 is a lost of 100 or approximate 37% of the original 288.
The orginal might have more than 50% more than the new one. But that is increase not lost.
Looks like something messed up percentage math. or I'm totally misunderstanding what is written in the article.
 
Great review, I was surprised how well the 380X did against the 1100 Mhz 280X in some of those games.

It is actually creepy how much you guys listen to your readers :p

Some don't think we do, but we do :)

Often times we cannot do everything in one single review, and must separate testing, which is usually for the best, allows specific focus on the topic.

More often than not we are given only a very short window to complete launch evaluations of new GPUs.

Just keep in mind, we can always follow-up with more material if needed, and this was needed as per feedback. It was a very interesting result.
 
this line kinda erks me.

The original 280X has 288GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The new 380X has a lot less, 182GB/sec of memory bandwidth. That's more than half the bandwidth lost

it mgiht be me but i cant get this to mean anything else that the new card has lost more than half of its bandwidth. but that its no thorugh
Going form 288 to 182 is a lost of 100 or approximate 37% of the original 288.
The orginal might have more than 50% more than the new one. But that is increase not lost.
Looks like something messed up percentage math. or I'm totally misunderstanding what is written in the article.

The 380X gains a feature the 280X did not have called Delta Color Compression. This allows the same data to utilize less bandwidth.

It is the same thing Maxwell uses - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/09/18/nvidia_maxwell_gpu_geforce_gtx_980_video_card_review/4

It was introduced on AMD GPUs with Tonga (R9 285)
 
The 380X gains a feature the 280X did not have called Delta Color Compression. This allows the same data to utilize less bandwidth.

It is the same thing Maxwell uses - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/09/18/nvidia_maxwell_gpu_geforce_gtx_980_video_card_review/4

It was introduced on AMD GPUs with Tonga (R9 285)

Im aware of the features but its not mentioned in this comparison at all just the hard numbers'. also this woukd make the conclusion even more wrong, as it would decrease the effect of the drop. Not increase it to " more than half the bandwidth lost!" since its the 380 with the small bandwidth that gains effective bandwidth amd thereby REDUCING the gab

Its just plain mathematically wrong say that dropping from 288 to 182 is"more than half the bandwidth lost" when its only around 37%.
 
Wow, that's impressive. I might toss one of these into my wife's machine instead of the 960 I was considering (she has a 980 right now, but I sold it because it's way more card than she or the children need).

Unfortunately it's only a small price jump to the 970 from there... Decisions, decisions.
 
Wow, that's impressive. I might toss one of these into my wife's machine instead of the 960 I was considering (she has a 980 right now, but I sold it because it's way more card than she or the children need).

Unfortunately it's only a small price jump to the 970 from there... Decisions, decisions.

The 970 has the memory issue...but not sure if you will hit the 3.5G B wall. However, @ 1080p..that is very unlikely. If I played @ 1440p or higher...the 970 would be right out IMO. Too much risk to bump into that 3.5GB wall.
 
The 970 has the memory issue...but not sure if you will hit the 3.5G B wall. However, @ 1080p..that is very unlikely. If I played @ 1440p or higher...the 970 would be right out IMO. Too much risk to bump into that 3.5GB wall.

Absolutely agree if they played new games. RAM capacity overruns were why I snapped up the TITAN X when they dropped; the 4GB on my SLI 980 wasn't enough at 1440p. My wife didn't want my ROG Swift (says it's too much monitor for her and the kids) so I sold it and the 980 to a friend(same friend that bought the first 980 of my pair).

I think I'm grabbing the 380x. Her PC will be staying 1080p, so the 380x gets the nod.
 
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You guys rock! Thanks for the review and listening to your forum members. This is exactly why I wanted to see the 1080P results so badly, nice card at a nice price!
 
Absolutely agree if they played new games. RAM capacity overruns were why I snapped up the TITAN X when they dropped; the 4GB on my SLI 980 wasn't enough at 1440p. My wife didn't want my ROG Swift (says it's too much monitor for her and the kids) so I sold it and the 980 to a friend(same friend that bought the first 980 of my pair).

I think I'm grabbing the 380x. Her PC will be staying 1080p, so the 380x gets the nod.

Too much monitor? She thought the price/hz was too much or something? Just curious. I mean, it's a nice monitor, 144hz and Gsync yeah? I'm guessing you need the income from the loss of selling a used monitor more than just keeping it? Is your friend now going to be upset because the SLI 980's are not enough for the Swift? Did you explain to him why you upgraded to the Titan X? Sorry to be a detective, just seems like an odd set of circumstances.

Yes, I agree, the 380x at 1080p is purrrfect.
 
What a strange set of questions...

1. She doesn't want a 27" monitor, it's too big for her desk. She doesn't play games, so 144Hz and GSync aren't important. She likes her IPS 1080p display for doing photo work anyway.
2. Money is not an issue... look at the rigs I run.
3. My friend knows 4GB was a limitation for me, and he doesn't believe it will be for him. He has bad credit and would literally never be able to purchase these things if I didn't sell them to him for a large discount, and on a payment plan. I really want him to have a nice PC because he's a nice guy, just financially incompetent. I already paid for them, so it makes no difference to me how long he takes to pay them off, as long as he does.
 
What a strange set of questions...

1. She doesn't want a 27" monitor, it's too big for her desk. She doesn't play games, so 144Hz and GSync aren't important. She likes her IPS 1080p display for doing photo work anyway.
2. Money is not an issue... look at the rigs I run.
3. My friend knows 4GB was a limitation for me, and he doesn't believe it will be for him. He has bad credit and would literally never be able to purchase these things if I didn't sell them to him for a large discount, and on a payment plan. I really want him to have a nice PC because he's a nice guy, just financially incompetent. I already paid for them, so it makes no difference to me how long he takes to pay them off, as long as he does.

I looked at your sig, and I am curious why you run the second pair of 128GB SSD drives as a JBOD setup instead of Raid 0 like your other SSDs? Is it due to a limiation of using the onboard Intel RAID controller? Does performance suffer from using them as a JBOD (I know it will not be as fast as a RAID 0 setup)..? I am just curious..


You seem like a good friend, and it's nice of you to help out someone you consider a close friend. I have to ask though, have you thought about helping him get his credit situation fixed? Sometimes it is worth biting the bullet and going through the hassle (some also feel disgrace) of Bankruptcy court instead of living his life with no credit possibilities and the stress that can cause during an unexpected emergency no?
 
Guys...I own the R390X & it does great in 1440P. I paid $340.00 for it on a NG BF sale.
 
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